Abstract
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been applied recently over the primary motor cortex and has recently been shown to neuroplasticity of the endogenous pain modulation (EPM) system. The aim of the current study is to present early results related to motor cortex and spinal neuroplasticity control of the EPM in healthy volunteers by measuring pressure pain threshold and cold pain intensity as outcome measures before and after M1 cortex or suboccipital DCS. Healthy volunteers (aged 18–40 years), in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial, were assigned to four DCS groups: sham-M1 cortex DCS, active-M1 cortex DCS, sham-suboccipital (SODCS) and active-SODCS. Data collected to date suggest that both M1 and spinal-DCS modulate thermal noxious stimuli. However, the demonstration of EPM neuroplasticity requires careful attention to the test and conditioning paradigm.
Project partially funded by DolSCI Special Emphasis Network Grant from Spinal Research and Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research.
Funding for DS was provided by a Fundación Mutua Madrileña 2015–2018 grant award.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Yarnitsky, D.: Role of endogenous pain modulation in chronic pain mechanisms and treatment. Pain 156, S24–S31 (2015)
Ossipov, M.H., Morimura, K., Porreca, F.: Descending pain modulation and chronification of pain. Curr. Opin. Support Palliat. Care 8(2), 143–151 (2014)
O’Connell, N.E., Marston, L., Spencer, S., DeSouza, L.H., Wand, B.M.: Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques for chronic pain. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 4, CD008208 (2018)
Lefaucheur, J.P., Antal, A., Ayache, S.S., Benninger, D.H., Brunelin, J., Cogiamanian, F., et al.: Evidence-based guidelines on the therapeutic use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Clin. Neurophysiol. 128(1), 56–92 (2017)
DaSilva, A.F., Volz, M.S., Bikson, M., Fregni, F.: Electrode positioning and montage in transcranial direct current stimulation. J. Vis. Exp. 51, e2744 (2011)
Flood, A., Waddington, G., Cathcart, S.: High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation enhances conditioned pain modulation in healthy volunteers: a randomised trial. J. Pain. 17, 1–6 (2016)
Priori, A., Ciocca, M., Parazzini, M., Vergari, M., Ferrucci, R.: Transcranial cerebellar direct current stimulation and transcutaneous spinal cord direct current stimulation as innovative tools for neuroscientists. J. Physiol. 592(16), 3345–3369 (2014)
Albu, S., Gómez-Soriano, J., Bravo-Esteban, E., Palazon, R., Kumru, H., Avila-Martin, G., et al.: Modulation of thermal somatosensory thresholds within local and remote spinal dermatomes following cervical repetitive magnetic stimulation. Neurosci. Lett. 25(555), 237–242 (2013)
Guerra, A., López-Alonso, V., Cheeran, B., Suppa, A.: Solutions for managing variability in non-invasive brain stimulation studies. Neurosci. Lett., 30 December 2018
Huang, Y.Z., Lu, M.K., Antal, A., Classen, J., Nitsche, M., Ziemann, U., et al.: Plasticity induced by non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation: a position paper. Clin. Neurophysiol. 128, 2318–2329 (2017)
Acknowledgment
We are grateful for the cooperation of the Rehabilitation Service of the Hospital Nacional de Parapléjicos with this project.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
García Barajas, G.C. et al. (2019). Targeting the Endogenous Pain Modulation System. In: Masia, L., Micera, S., Akay, M., Pons, J. (eds) Converging Clinical and Engineering Research on Neurorehabilitation III. ICNR 2018. Biosystems & Biorobotics, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01845-0_136
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01845-0_136
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01844-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01845-0
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)